“We have this all the time,” the driver said. “The bureaucracy is mind-boggling.”
We rounded a corner and saw a convoy of buses full of Iraqi prisoners. They didn’t look very happy with themselves. The main terminal was deserted. We sat through two hours of petty administration before the call finally came for us to be put onto an aircraft.
The walking prisoners went up the steps at the front of the two Swissair 727s. The stretcher cases were maneuvered up the stairwell at the rear. I stayed with Mark. The Swissair crew greeted us like VIPs, and straightaway the coffee came out-with cream. It was nectar.
As the aircraft lifted from the runway, we roared like a football crowd.
I looked at Mark and grinned. This time we really were going home.
13
The head boy of the American contingent, a colonel, came over the loudspeakers. He wanted to orchestrate it so that all his men were dressed only in their POW kit, to look good for the cameras. They had to bin their pullovers. He also organized them so that they came out in strict order of rank. I couldn’t believe it. Five minutes out of an Iraqi jail and he gets his military head on again.
Mark and I were unaffected by this crap because we knew we wouldn’t leave the aircraft until the media had dispersed. We were getting in amongst the sticky buns and coffee when the captain announced that our pair of 727s would soon be getting an escort of F15s and Tornadoes.
No sooner had he said it than two American F15s came up alongside, one flying slightly higher than the other. They maneuvered until they were flying right over the wings of our aircraft. The Yanks were up and giving it lots of “Yo!” One pilot responded by taking his mask off and giving it the old “Way to go!” arm swing in the air. He fired off chaff and banked away. It really was a fantastic sight.
Then the pilots got their acrobatic hats on. One spun off and did a victory roll and landed up over the other wing; then both F15s landed over the starboard wing.
Now it was the turn of the R.A.F Tornadoes. They came up so close that I could see the pilots’ eyes. One flier took off his mask and mouthed the word “Wankers!” with, of course, the accompanying wrist action. John Nichol, the R.A.F prisoner who had shaken my hand, went up forward and spoke to some of them on the radio. They fired off chaff and were spinning around the sky as well-and doing it all a bit better than the Yanks, I thought.
“These jet pilots think they’re the only ones that can do that,” said our captain. “So, fasten your seatbelts, please, and hang on tight.”
With that he banked the aircraft steeply and put us into a perfect barrel roll. The other Swissair jet came up level with us, and both aircraft flew in concentric circles, meeting up again in the middle.
There was another big roar as we passed into Saudi airspace, and then all the jets came down, hoiked down the chaff, and were off, afterburners flaming in the brilliant blue sky.
We landed in Riyadh to a tumultuous welcome. Every pressman and his dog was there, and every bit of top brass-Stormin’ Norman included. Mark and I peeked out from behind the blinds and saw that some of our people were there too. It was just a matter of waiting. The Saudis disembarked first, followed by the orderly exit of correctly dressed Americans. The rear door was opened and the stretcher cases were loaded into the ambulances. Our people came on board.
“We’re going to throw you in the back of one of the ambulances,” one of them said. “You’ll then go straight around the corner into a C130. We’ll fly out, land at another airfield, and pick up a VC10 which will take you straight to Cyprus, where you’re going to hospital.”
We got onto the C130, and the rest of the Brits joined us. We flew for about twenty minutes, landed, and picked up our connection for Cyprus. The interior of the aircraft had been thoughtfully rearranged so that the seats faced one another. We were each given a day sack, in which was a Walkman, spare batteries, shaving foam, a razor, underpants, soap, and a watch with both digital and analogue time.
It was dark when we landed at R.A.F Akrotiri. Again, our own people were there to meet us. Each of us was allotted a sponsor we knew. Mine was an old mate, Kenny. His first words were: “Am I ever pissed off that you’re still alive. I was down to take over your job next September.”
There were lots of handshakes, and a bottle of gin was circulating rapidly. A fellow sergeant called Mugger was in overall charge of the SAS recovery mission. He was running around Riyadh with a borrowed Warrant Officer crest on his wrist to give his requests added authority, as nobody from, the Regiment was wearing anything that showed who or what they were.
“I wish you’d been delayed even more,” he honked, “because I’ve been running around doing the RSM bit. It’s fucking great.”
We were put on a bus and taken straight to a segregated secure ward at the military hospital.
The massive, hulking frame of Stan loomed out of the darkness, closely followed by Dinger, fag in hand. Stan had hepatitis and wasn’t feeling too good, but Dinger was firing on all cylinders.
“I’ve phoned Jilly,” he said. “I’ve got it all squared away; don’t worry about the phone cards. Our blokes have rigged up a link through to the UK.”
Mugger went down to the town to organize a few videos for our entertainment, and the B Squadron sergeant major turned up with a hospital trolley loaded with booze for a piss-up. We were smuggled out of the ward and down to the library, where we set about getting blitzed.
Gordon Turnbull, the R.A.F psychologist and counselor, had arrived in Cyprus to oversee the recuperative phase.
“What have you got there?” he asked Mugger as he spotted him heading for the library.
“Videos for the lads.”
“Mind if I have a look?”
Turnbull nearly had a heart attack. Mugger had bought us Terminator, Driller Killer, and Nightmare on Elm Street. “You can’t do this!” he shrieked. “Those blokes are all traumatized!”
“Traumatized?” said Mugger. “They’re pissed out of their brains. Come and have a look.”
Turnbull saw us and blew a gasket.
“Don’t worry about it,” Mugger said. “They were all fucking barking to start with.”
I helped Mark into the bath, and a big lump of skin the size of a bath plug fell out of the hole in his foot. I then went in search of our special phone.
The armed guard sneaked me down to the cellar and took me to where a couple of scaleys were guarding the phone to keep away freeloaders.
The link worked perfectly, and I got through to Jilly straightaway.
I staggered to bed after lots of “I love you.” As my head hit the pillow, I worked out that this was the first proper bed I had slept in for eight weeks, three days.
For the next couple of days we had X rays and tests, and the dentists had a provisional go at my teeth. We had posttraumatic shock sessions with Gordon Turnbull, which lasted only a few minutes each. Poor Gordon, he’d thought it was Christmas with all these traumatized blokes coming back from captivity. He was good at his job, but the mentality of the blokes made them far more interested in taking advantage of everything else that was on offer. Our blokes had organized for us to get down to the town, and the Red Cross had given us a float of money. We wanted to buy our duty frees before it all disappeared.
The Red Cross went round asking if we had any special requests, which they would then go into the town and buy on our behalf.
“Why don’t you just give us the money, and we’ll | buy our own kit?” I said to a distinguished-looking I lady in her late fifties.
“You can fuck off,” she smiled. “Do you think I was | born yesterday?”
However, she eventually relented. I bought jeans,.: T-shirts and videos, and a suitcase to put it all in. Everybody had a good old shopping frenzy. After an | hour we started running out of money, and Kenny f was flapping because we put a 600 pounds dent in his plastic. He knew he’d have a long wait before we paid him back.